1.3 MacPorts

MacPorts contains a Portfile for GHC. Using MacPorts to install GHC will take a while as your computer will compile all the source files itself. In most cases, you're better off installing GHC through the standalone installer (see next section).

If you have MacPorts installed and haven't told it to selfupdate in a while, do that first:

$ sudo port selfupdate

This will take up to a minute, so be patient. It tells MacPorts to retrieve the latest package information from its servers. Next, install GHC:

$ sudo port install ghc

MacPorts will first download and install any dependencies that are needed to install GHC; then it will download, build and install GHC itself. A point of caution however. MacPorts also provides GHC packages. If these are installed and then GHC is upgraded the packages need to be uninstalled and reinstalled, or they will not register properly with the upgraded GHC.